Phoenix Rising
by FlamesEmbrace
Summary: This one's hard to describe. Basically, it's slightly in the future of now, milinea after the fall of Valdemar. A girl finds a sword and must restore magic. Other stuff happens, perhaps future romance. Review?
1. Default Chapter

Its name is Phoenix Rising.  
  
Chapter One, the Prologue, and parts of Chapter Two are all very old. I recovered this not long ago, though it's more than a year old.... anyway. I liked the idea, and I still do. Originally, it was an original. But then, the enchanted whatever-I-wanted-it-to-be turned into Need, and nothing else ancient and magic would do after she appeared in my mind. So, it became a fanfic. Albeit, not your adverage one. Reviews are insanely happy, and make a happy Ember. Enjoy!  
  
Prologue  
  
//How... how long? How long had it been? Was it still asleep? So long, and it was. But not a deep sleep, not the sleep that had inprisoned it forever.  
  
Years, had it been? Flashes of what had been important people- how, it did not know- swam through it's awareness. Every once in a while, it would grab an idea of why they were important, like wisps of silk floating in the breeze, but they died in moments.  
  
Decades? Forever. It had been sleeping forever. Even now, no feelings, no true thoughts, nothing to tell it anything. Nothing but the endless expance of sleep. There had been a time, so long ago, where sleep had looked welcoming. Now it fought for what it had.  
  
Centuries. It had been centuries. Longer. Milinea. Forever. Longer than it had ever intended to wait. It tried to remember what happened, but the memories would not stir.  
  
Why had it awakened? This has never happened before. Sleep was close. It hadn't been woken, but it was nearly awake anyway. Wake within sleep. Dreams within dreams.  
  
Something was pulling it, something unlike anything it had felt before. No, not entirly unlike, but it could not tell where this sensation had bothered it before. What... what was wrong? Why had it stired?  
  
Memories of a life that hadn't been touched for... forever stirred, taking the place of the faces, the voices. Names rushed passed it, so fast it couldn't even touch them. Something about nessicity....  
  
The voices returned right as it fell into the void of sleep. They sang, chanted, really, a poem, one farmilliar in a sence altogether too much like deja-vu, that each one had said, or even only thought, once before. That much it knew. And then it was lost in the blackness and sleep.  
  
Woman's Need calls me As woman's Need made me That Need I will answer As my maker bade me.... //  
  
Chapter One  
  
Oh, loathe, that the phoenix, so bright, so brilliant, should rise from something like gray ash. Oh, the bird of fire, which brings hope back to our hearts, the hearts of man, so easily deceived by our inventions, illusions of happiness! Oh, loathe! for when you die, good phoenix, the magic of this world is gone, and only awaists your return.  
  
That she should rise, like the phoenix, from gray. That she should emerge in fire, that she should burst like the sun rising from mists, and bring fire to ash burned twice over. Ah, she of the fire colors, colors of hope and magic. She who rises, from the gray of the world, ruined by man and fed to what remained of the rest of the living beasts of earth. And she, who walked from the world, the world of people who quested to all look the same, to all be the same, and act the same, and talk the same, and everyone, all alike, and she! she alone was different. The year was 2034.  
  
And loathe to man, who hunted her. Yes, she was different, and man cannot see something different and not want for it. And her? She had no money. She was hope, yet for her, there was none. Her parents- her father was drunk, loving only himself, caring nothing even for the toxins he poured into his body. And yet, could he love even himself? He was poisoning himself, killing himself as surely as her mother, who sucked on the end of cigarettes, all day, sparing no glance for her or her brother, who nearly lived in his group of friends, his gang, who stole from and beat the old to death and called it "the circle of life."  
  
She sat alone, so alone, on the wreck of an old hospital. This world had no need for hospitals, this world that was only what was inside the signs that said "Talisburg." When she was little, she used to believe that a prince would come, and save her, like in the tales her sister told to her. She grew older, and magic faded from her, and she dreamed that her mother was not truly her mother, and her real mother was her sister, so beloved, who cared for her, and loved her, and she, in her little sister's dreams, was all there was of this world. She grew older, and these died and grew to dreams of freedom and adulthood. She grew older, and dreams faded.  
  
Her sister was dead.  
  
Suicide, the cold, unfeeling men said when they trotted up, feeling confident and important in their blue uniformed decked in cheap metal badges. Her wrists had been slashed open by her own knife, and her arms. Terrible shame, said the emotionless men, but then, there's so much of this. Farewell, they said. And they left.  
  
She had looked unreal, lying in her coffin as they all walked back, her brother surly, her father looking as sad as he could, her mother feigning tears. And her sister, her darling Lynx, which is was She called her, oh, she cried storms! Her bother and parents glared at her like she was a terrible embarrassment, but she would not stop. How she raced to the coffin, the last of her dreams caught in her throat, only to have them dashed on a rock when she saw Her, so dead, so obviously dead. Oh, hell.  
  
So she sat alone.  
  
Oh, to hate the world, when all one knows of it is pain, and suffering, and the gray upon gray upon gray that is only a sliver of one slice of this world. How silent was she, as if she were mad at the world! As if the city itself could get on it's knees and apologize for hurting her, for treating her so cruely. But you cannot live inside your head forever, nor can you thrive in anger, or flourish in ash, in salt-sowed feilds. Nothing would spring to life in Talisburg, ever again. And like birds in a barren forest, the children of the new generation flew to more open pastures. Like seed pods from dying plants.  
  
And like everyone else, Lynx's own journey was coming for her. _______________________________________________________________  
  
And so we return to where we were, with Lynx perched like a vulture on the remains of a hospital, a gun tucked into her hand. She watched the long- abandoned street with apprehension, knowing who it was she heard muttering just over the hill. The gun caught a bit of sunlight just as the flame- haired girl pushed the safety off.  
  
All and all, it was a welcome sight when the thick, bulky men- just sprung from boys like plants from soil- crested the hill, scanning the ruins of the old lot for her. She slid, as slowly and carefully as she could, two bullets into the cartridge. That was all the tiny gun could hold. She would only have time for one reload before they could draw their own guns. She would have to take out one per bullet, narrowing the number to seven, before running.  
  
The barrel slowly flowed up, until it pointed at the nearest man's chest. Her finger slid around the trigger.  
  
"There she is!" cried one of the men.  
  
The gun went off with a bang. The man fell back, clutching at his chest, and flexed once before dying. Three more shots rang out, but Lynx was already in the shelter of the rocks. The advantage of choosing your own terrain to die upon, she supposed.  
  
This, you see, was what life had come to. And no one was more aware of that then Lynx.  
  
She stood, fired, and fell back. No one made a sound. Dammit! A miss! She reloaded, but was too slow; someone had made it there and pointed his revolver at her eye.  
  
He slipped just as he fired, and Lynx, not one to be frozen in shock at luck, slipped away. Her two bullets were lost in the leg of the nearest thug, and the skull of another.  
  
She fled down the street, her long, dark hair streaming in the wind. The gang, like a pack of wolves, hounded her, guns firing every few seconds. But she was faster then them, and despite their practice, they weren't great shots. She heard a soft, farmilliar moan as she fired over her shoulder, and reconized it, to her horror, as her brother. But she did not slow, nor turn; only ran as fast as her legs would take her.  
  
Into the nearest ruins she ran, dodging through rocks and mud. The cries of the thugs faded into the distance, and she slowed, catching her breath. Looking around, she saw nothing of interest, and sank to her knees in exausion. She reached into her pockets, and pulled out five bullets, and looked at her little gun. Five shots. A gun was useless without bullets, and amo cost money, and lots of it. That was cash she didn't have. She needed a weapon.  
  
Then she saw it. It was a handle.  
  
These ruins weren't old; perhaps that was a gun! For the first time in years, luck was on her side, today. Tossing her cheap plaything aside, she clawed at the mud, but found that it dried and hardened not far down, so she retreived the shotgun and scratched at the dirt with it. It wasn't a gun, but it was a weapon. No, it was a sword! She dug faster, her eyes wide. Swords were nothing against guns, but they were worth a lot, bartered for cach to collectors. This one wasn't over-adorned, which meant, surely, it was a cheap one, and probably not very old- the knights of old had swords encrusted with rubies, she knew that- but it was still worth something.  
  
It was about two feet long, and made very fine, for it to have survived in such good shape. She grabbed the handle and pulled with all her might. It moved side to side when she pushed it, so she wiggled it. The dirt loosened, and she pulled it out.  
  
Yes, it was a fine work. Some old blacksmith, she thought, remembering her history lessons. But then, of how much use were they now?  
  
There was something engraved into the hilt. Drawing it near to her face, she squinted, rubbed dirt aside, and read.  
  
//Woman's Need calls me/ As woman's Need made me/ Her Need I will answer/ As my maker bade me //  
  
Something shifted inside her mind, and she almost dropped the sword. For a moment, she felt a pull to all directions tear at her mind, and she gave a little cry, and then a little peice of her brains said //:What in the seven Hells is this?: //  
  
The sword Need had awoken. 


	2. Chapter TwoAck, I've laaagged!

Chapter 2  
  
Welcome back. Sorry this took so long- Chap. 3 is already done, so it's not going to take as long to get it up- I just need to edit it a bit. This one is mostly old, like the first chapter, so wait until the end before the writing improves. A bit of the plot is revealed.  
  
My first ever commenter made reference the Storm Rising and that trilogy, and, believe it or not, Ember has read these books and did not pretend that the end, which may have been a problem, didn't happen- she evaded the problem on her own! This is getting remarkably close to being able to right fanfics that don't contradict the original stuffs! Yay for me!  
  
/italic/  
  
~bold~  
  
/It slowly felt the pull to conciousness, as well as a stirring in it's mind. It? Was it a man, or a sword? It felt nothing, but a weight in an imaginary hand, and then it opened it's eyes./  
  
And then it opened it's eyes!  
  
/:What the Hell is this?:/ Need, the lady-turned sword, croaked in her new bearer's mind. The girl almost dropped her, her surprise freezing her mind. But Need stopped her, using her hand as if that had been all she had done in her sleep.  
  
"Are.... are you talking to /me/?" asked the girl- Lynx- as she looked around furiously.  
  
/:I ain't out there,:/ said Need with humor in her gravelly mind-voice. /:The sword, kitten. I'm the sword.:/  
  
"Great joke," muttered Lynx, but as though she didn't want anyone to hear her.  
  
/:Kitten, who's around to joke?:/  
  
"My brother's friends," she retorted (to the /sword/, she thought bitterly,) "And a whole other pack of imbecils."  
  
There was a mental silence from the sword. Then, /:Child, who are you?:/  
  
"That's what I should be asking you."  
  
/:Tell me who you are and where- and when- this is. I think I've been asleep for longer than I intended.:/  
  
Need's new bearer did not look at the sword, calling tonelessly out to the rest of world and the player of this supposed joke. "I'm Lynn Carol Tiercel, but you will call me Lynx. It's my name now, and I'm not bothering with all the other shit. You are in the town of Talisburg, June fourteenth, 2034."  
  
/:What was that year?:/  
  
"2034."  
  
That made no sence. 2034 after what? It was merely 700 years since the founding of Valdemar, and she hadn't even mentioned the kingdom.... No. There was no way. She could not have slept that long. /:What do you know of the Kingdom of Valdemar?:/  
  
"Valdemar?" There was silence, like the moment's after a cougar's strike, before Lynx continued. "Never heard of it."  
  
/:Karse?:/  
  
"No."  
  
/:Rethwellan?:/  
  
Lynx looked down at the sword. "Rethwellan? The ruins?"  
  
There was mental blankness from the sword. Then, /:Ruins?:/  
  
"They're... huge with tourists. They say that they're over four thousand years old." Lynx looked to the East. "Many, many miles away, though, in another continent. There's a huge lake there, and a few mountains to the South."  
  
The sword had been silent. /:Four thousand years?:/  
  
"Yes."  
  
:Too long.: She cursed with such vehelocity that Lynx blanked. Too long! /That/ was what had woken her! Too long!  
  
/:Lynx, tell me this, please. Tell me what a gryphon is.:/  
  
"What? I don't know."  
  
/:What about Wyrsa? Ice-drakes? Basalisks?:/  
  
The last she answered. "They're mythical beasts. Half bird, half snake."  
  
That wasn't what Need wanted.  
  
/:Do the White Winds schools still run?:/  
  
"What? No."  
  
/:Any mage-schools?:/  
  
"Mage school?" Lynx's forgotten doubt crept back into her voice. "Magic?"  
  
The sword blanked. It fell silent, and, after a time, Lynx poked in the dirt until a considerably younger sheild sprang up. This, at least, was encrusted in jewels, and if Lynx's eye was correct, real ones.  
  
/:I shouldn't have slept this long,:/ Need said at last. /:It's all gone. I've slept too long.:/  
  
____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
Too long. She had slept for too long.  
  
Need wracked her brain for a way out of this, a way out. The world around them deteriorated, falling apart in front of their eyes. She simply walked, walked the girl called Lynx like one would ride a horse, and wondered what had become of her world.  
  
Impulses were Need's specialty, and Lynx had wanted to leave for as long as she had lived here. It only took a slight push, a bit of fear, to get her to leave the city, instinctively travelling to the east, where she felt home should be. What had happened to her?  
  
Well, she remembered Firesong, and the wall that kept away the cataclysm. She remembered the Pit, the light, the heat, the Light. She remembered watching Florian be torn apart by fire and Light, and heard Altra's screech of pain. How could she remember all of this?  
  
The two tevardi had lived. The two gryphons had lived. She remembered feeling Firesong drop her... No. The Tayledras had not dropped her, that she knew.  
  
She had exploded. She felt herself burn through Firesong's face, felt herself fall as ashes to the earth. Felt something drop, felt the Tayledras' horrible mental scream of pain and anguish and guilt, but he had not let go of his end of the spell. She heard a cry from- what was his name? Falconsbane, or was it something else, something softer? The memories ended after that, descending into nothingness again. She could remember nothing before that, nothing but faces and purpose.  
  
She had a purpose here. What was it?  
  
How had she returned to life?  
  
She had been sparks on the earth, before. Never to save another woman, but her spirit had not been released. She had yet more purpose on the earth, for she had become more sword than woman. She had become more of a part of the world itself than a spirit, than a human. And now, Need had been called again. Need had once more returned.  
  
With the human's mind held tight in hand, Need moved steadily forward. ____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
Well, she couldn't rightly sell it. The sword that called herself Need did not stop talking to her, asking Lynx stupid questions without answers and riddles only she knew. But she couldn't sell it- her- to some pawn shop where she would be melted down and made into talking wineglasses. She found a sheath, still in remarkable condition for four thousand years, and put Need back into it.  
  
/:Companions, kid. Do you know-:/  
  
"No!" she snapped back to the sword at her waist, and if there was anyone around to hear they would be staring at her. "Shut up! I don't know about your world!"  
  
Need had been doing contemplation, lately. Loud contemplation. She supposed she had been toted around by males for a few milinea, then lost and forgotten when "these awful concoctions you call guns" were invented. Perhaps overseas, she had said. Perhaps far, far from home.  
  
/Well,/ Lynx thought, /that makes two of us./  
  
For now she was far from home. Outside city limits were a few empty roads, then another depressing mob of civilization, then roads, then empty city, then roads....  
  
It was hours that she walked, without even realizing she was walking. It wasn't unusual, now, for people to suddenly, inexplicably, leave their homes. Especially not people who had nothing to lose. Especially not teenagers. Like her.  
  
Especially people who couldn't go home, because there were people there waiting for her. Waiting to- waiting for her.  
  
But.. she had expected something to happen. Okay, finding a talking sword was something, but some concious decision, some flurry of anger, something besides turning around and walking. She lived off what she had made for a meal she had packed, some lunch that she made linger until the sun decided to retire to her western bed, and she came across a living, pulsing city. She kept Need at her side, to the sword's obvious relief, but bartered off the jewel-encrusted sheild. According to the 'expert' the jewels were glass, but he gave her a handful of money; barely enough to scrape by an existance.  
  
The blade at her side made her victim to no few glances, chortles or open stares, but then, a little girl all alone would do that all the same, no matter the pistol she openly bought new bullets for. She slipped the bullets into a pocket, held the gun discreetly in her hand, and walked to the nearest motel, determined to get a room and have a long, intricate discussion with an inanimate object.  
  
"Room for da night, then, girl?" asked the manager, his thoughts obvious as his eyes trailed from her sword, to her gun, to her breasts, and then to her face. "Ten bucks, little girl."  
  
"For one rat's quarters and some roach-infested breatfast?" spat Lynx, turning on her heel. "I'll find another place."  
  
"Five-fifty!" called the man after her. "But we don't serve breakfast here."  
  
"Five-fifty," snarled Lynx, her back still to the manager, listening to the desperation in his voice and knowing nothing from it, as that was how everyone talked, "would hardly buy the room without the meal. Three."  
  
"Four fifty."  
  
"Two fifty."  
  
"Four."  
  
Lynx made a barely-audible sound, and passed over the hard-earned money. The man tossed her keys. "Third door on the left. And if you get lonely-"  
  
She left without waiting for him to finish the sentence. ______________________________________________________________________  
  
/:What is it you want to say?:/  
  
"Well. I came in here alone, and there's still a voice in my head. That confirms it; I'm mad."  
  
Need was caught between giving her the most goddamned huge headache the disrespectful girl had ever had, and bursting out laughing. Here or Valdemar, no one can hear a sword talk into their heads and still be assured of their sanity. /:If it makes you uneasy, you don't have to talk aloud. I can read your thoughts, if only you didn't sheild them so tightly....:/  
  
"Shield?" asked Lynx, still talking aloud. "What does that mean?"  
  
Need was silent for a moment. Then, /:This is going to take a while.:/  
  
Lynx hesitated. Then, she thought, /Can you hear this?/  
  
/:Yes.:/  
  
/Seriously?/  
  
/:No. I'm kidding, you idiotic little girl. Think for a second before you speak.:/  
  
Lynx fumed for a second, then burst out laughing. Taking the sword off her belt, she threw it onto the bed and flopped down beside it. Her. /So you can read my thoughts. I always assumed that if I were schitzophrinic, I'd be more wierded out by it all. But somehow, when it's a sword, it's not that bad./  
  
/:I asked if we could have a serious discussion, Lynx. I believe you found me for a reason.:/ Who ever knew a sword would be so sober? Well, it would be wierder if she had a sense of humor, come to think of it. /:I have a purpose.:/  
  
/What, like godsent?/ This type of discussion was easy, Lynx found- and she was braver in what she thought than what she said. /So, Need, what's your purpose? Woman's need?/  
  
There was a long pause from the steel blade. /:When you picked me up, you felt the pain that pulled you somewhere. Everywhere. I felt it, too. That was trying to get you to save women.:/ Another pause, this one almost sad, if a sword could feel emotion. /:Women are in danger everywhere. So are men. I think that our purpose is more than that.:/  
  
Lynx paused, and ran her fingers over the cold steel blade. The words were still there, engraved in english. Apparently, they reformed into the language of the person reading them; magic. More magic. Magic that didn't exist, wasn't real. And now this two-foot length of steel was telling her they had a purpose; a purpose outside living in the god-forsaken world.  
  
/:We will find it in the ruins you spoke of. We will find our purpose in Rethwellan.:/  
  
"Bullshit." Lynx was talking aloud, again, and damn anyone who could hear. "There's nothing in the ruins of Rethwellan but a few rocks and some overweight tourists. We can't afford the plane tickets, either. What do you suggest, that we build a magic portal?"  
  
The sword's reply was serious. /:You don't have mage-potential. We can't.:/  
  
Need was once a woman. Need had been the sword of women and the friend of women for longer than she could remember, and she was used to turns in demeanor. But Lynx's was so sudden, so violent, that it startled even the experienced sword.  
  
"There is no magic!" The girl's eyes burned with fire, burned with fury. "There is no magic! I once damned believed in it, but you didn't appear then, Need! Now, when everything's damned gone and everyone's dead and everything's GONE, now you come and say, oops, it DOES exist, now you have to believe me and help me when I've done nothing to help you. Now, it DOES exist, and now I won't bring back anything but-"  
  
/:Quiet!:/ Need's own violence had suddenly choked her- and she didn't even have a throat. /:Be quiet, you stupid little girl! Stop whining and listen to what I have to say. I had no control over when I slept and when I awoke. I cannot go back to when the people I care about exist; I have to go on and on and on until there is no more use for me, whether or not I like it. There IS magic in this world. There was. It can't all be gone.:/ This was what both sword and girl had wanted to say all along, this argument, this branching storm. /:It can't all be gone.:/  
  
"If it wasn't gone, then the world wouldn't be like this." Lynx bent over the sword, unaware that Need's sight was her own eyes, and looking down at herself didn't effect the concious mind at all. "If it ever did exist, it's gone, now. It wouldn't be like this. If magic existed, there wouldn't be murder, or prejudice, or suicide." The last was said bitterly, as if her sister's death was Need's fault.  
  
/:The world had hate, and murder, and suicide with magic, as well.:/  
  
"You can see through my eyes! You can see this world! It's run down, it's broken, it's gray! It's all gone; it's ruins, like a new Rethwellan. It's GONE, Need- magic in itself is gone, and it's gone forever, like everything else. All gone, the end." Lynx laughed again, but no longer with the cheer of a girl who accepts her own insanity, no longer a laugh between accqaintances. Now, it was a bitter laugh, a cold laugh. "Maybe, you found me just so you'd have eyes to see the end of the world with." 


End file.
